First Songs You Ever Learned on Guitar?

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I'm cobbling together a curriculum for guitar lessons for wee ones in the area via our local community centre, and am scratching my head trying to think of a) what the first songs were that I ever learned, and whether those have any bearing on what pre-teens listen to (or have ever listened to, come to think about it). I think I've now got some good ideas nailed down, but am curious about where other people got started.

[ge-off]

collective soul - shine...

woah, heaven let your light shine down..

soon after..

green day when i come around..

which allowed me to learn

Bush X - glycerine

Edited November 14, 2005 by Guest

[Esau]

Tangled Up In Blue

Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Helpless

[Jaimoe]

Maggot Brain

Edited November 14, 2005 by Guest

[can-o-phish]

Heart of Gold w/Harmonica as well

Blackbird

American Pie

[Tooly]

helpless

smoke on the water

tangled up in blue

dear mr fantasy

[Velvet]

First song I ever learned will be of no help to you at all - Dee by Randy Rhoads.

Try Good Riddance (AKA Time Of Your Life) or Blvd. Of Broken Dreams by Green Day.

Good Riddance

G G Cadd9 D x2

em D Cadd9 G x2

em G em G

em D G G

Blvd. Of Broken Dreams

em G D A

[TheGoodRev]

My first guitar book, at 8 years old, was The Standard Guitar Method. I remember learning a bunch of scales and the folk song "Tom Dooley", among others. Here's the only pic I could find, but I only ever used the first two volumes:

From there, I started learning the chords and melody lines to various oldies; "When I'm 64" and Elvis' "Good Luck Charm" were among the first. Johnny B. Goode, Peggy Sue and Surfin Safari were also in there. After that, I vividly remember learning the 12-bar blues structure, learning about tonic and dominant 7th, etc. That was a huge thing to learn, and it still helps me today. I only took lessons until I was 12, and after that it was all self-teaching.

Seriously though, if you're looking to do it without a book, start with the Beatles. Hopefully anybody with even a mild interest in playing the guitar has an appreciation for the Beatles. I'd recommend getting your students to buy little dictation books though, and bringing a box of golf pencils to each class, so they can remember stuff. Because we all know that the secret to good guitar playing is practice. I was always the kid showing up for lessons not having practiced, and the teacher always knows. Half the time he'd make me sit there and do my practicing in the lesson, because you can't progress if you haven't practiced.

[AD]

Eruption

*yawn*

ad

[Birdy]

me and bobby mcgee

heart of gold

[Phunk_Nugget]

Polly - Nirvana

Black - Pearl Jam

Tangerine - Led Zeppelin

Watchtower - the hendrix style

[deranger]

ask the kids what they listen to and what songs they'd like to learn how to play. Teaching them tunes they're unfamiliar with might be unproductive.

[timouse]

ask the kids what they listen to and what songs they'd like to learn how to play. Teaching them tunes they're unfamiliar with might be unproductive.

indeed.

for what it's worth, wish you were here comes to mind (taught by dr evil himself!)

[bradm]

ISTR learning "Communication Breakdown" by Led Zeppelin early on (for which I learned barre chords, which I think is a very good thing), along with "Sunshine Of Your Love" by Cream, and "Day Tripper" by The Beatles (when I played the main riff of that tune the first or second time correctly, my brother came rusing into my room, proclaiming, "I recognize that!"). The main book I used at that time was "Improvising Rock Guitar".

Aloha,

Brad

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

ask the kids what they listen to and what songs they'd like to learn how to play. Teaching them tunes they're unfamiliar with might be unproductive.

This has been my experience, and I know from learning myself that I have to like the song well enough to have it rolling around in my head all day and still like it. Last student I had was a huge Tupac Shakur nut, which meant that all we ever really got to work with was little figures you could play on one string, which would of course be looped. He later, of course, went on to fall in love with Dylan two years after we'd discontinued lessons (I wonder to this day if he would have had I forced the Dylan on him).

[Schwa.]

Baby Bitch - Ween (Em, G, D, Am)

Rosemary - Lenny Kravitz (A, G, D)

Southern Cross - CSN (G, D, A and i think there's a Bm in there too)

Wheat Kings - Tragically Hip (G, C, D)

All open chords basically.

Dirt by Phish is a really easy but cool sounding first song too, long as you get the strum down. Throw in some whistling and you're a genius.

***disclaimer*** for those of you that don't like me playing Phish songs, FUCK YOU!

[Jaimoe]

I'm pretty sure I learned 12-bar blues first, but that ain't a song.

[Large Marge]

House of the Rising Sun

[jonyak]

the first things I learned were all nirvana tunes because the people in my class asked me to learn them and play them for them.. I did.

For bass, it was a whole lot of standard jazz stuff that I can't remember for the life of me cause it was all charted stuff.

[Im going home Donny]

well thanks to Velvet(awesome guitar teacher)I learned D DSus Dsus D (e?)....free falling by Tom Petty...and no thanks to me thats as far as I've gotten...by now I should be well into I get by with a little help...

Velvet I've given myself one month to get back on the train or I have to give the guitar back to the 7 year old who lent it to me.

[Jakis]

The first three songs I learned were..

Neil Young - heart of gold

Ween - bananas and blow

DMB - grey street

[Douglas]

Smelly Cat :blush:

[purple foot]

first lick on guitar was "today" by the pumpkins. first song i taught myself was "for whom the bell tolls" on bass by metallica. i just had to learn that bassline.

[hamilton]

The Troggs, "Wild Thing". Doesn't get much easier than that, and it's fun, too!

[Hal Johnson]

"I was alone" off Dookie

I learned mostly simple three or four chord songs at first. When I finally took a Jazz course I was blown away at how much more fun the Guitar could be. The first Song I learned then was "Chitlans Con Carne" by Kenny Burrell. It was at that point that I wished I had learned a more complicated style at first, as it would have made evrything else easier, as opposed to well, more difficult. If that makes any sense...